Odio Virus Part 1
Transformers 2005 - Monday, November 01, 2004, 7:51 PM ------------------------------------------------------ Pipeline hurms, "Pipeline to anyone out there. This is interesting." Foxfire says, "What's interestin'?" Jazz says, "What's up, Pipeline m'man?" Pipeline says, "Well, ya know that thingy that Prime wanted ya two to get? I...think I decoded it. Very interesting." Durango says, "Well? The bloody 'ell is ist then?" Jazz says, "Yeah? Interestin' how? Where are ya? Ya can show me." Pipeline says, "Well, I'm not about to say somethin like that over this now am I? I'm in AC's repair bay." Foxfire says cheerfully, "Coming!" Durango says, "Be theah in a jif." Jazz says, "I'm on m'way, man." Repair Bay This is the main repair bay for the Autobots. Several operating tables lie in a row here, and a long bench lines one wall. On the bench are assorted tools used in repairing damaged Transformers. Scattered throughout the room are various repair bots, awaiting the arrival of more wounded to repair. The room gives you the perception of being immaculately clean, with not a single tool out of place. Contents: Jazz Pipeline Twin Twist's Table Gumby Medic Med-Comm Pipeline is just finishing connecting up the last wires into the cylinder with the little crystal thingies on it. He hurms to himself and really isn't paying attention to anyone who's coming in or not. Pipeline grumbles as he gets shocked by the device and says, "If ya do that again, so help me I'll turn yer code inside out!" Highlight has connected. Jazz meanders into the repair bay about that time, fresh from... wherever he's been lurking these days. "That sounds kinda painful, Pipe. Ya said ya got somethin'?" Foxfire enters from the Main Lobby - First Floor to the north. Foxfire has arrived. Durango enters from the Main Lobby - First Floor to the north. Durango has arrived. Scattershot climbs up from the training room looking like he had a good workout. "What's all the gibberish on the radio? Is anything wrong?" The technobot looks around to see if anyone is hurt or if any alarms are ringing and...well nothing from the looks of it. "C'mon fill me in bud I don't have all day." Foxfire bounds into the med bay, and skids to a stop before hopping onto one of the various tables to get a good look at what's going on. Durango comes staggering through the door..he still has yet to get a grasp on taking the spacebridge without throwing off his equilibrium. He says nothing -- given his current state, added on top of his already incomprehensible speech patterns, its probably best that he remain silent. He props himself unceremoniously up against a wall, and tries to make the room stop spinning. Highlight meanders his way in from the lounge, a somewhat inquisitive look on his faceplate. Shuffling his deck of cards like only he can, he hears Scattershot's question and can only nod in agreement. He pulls up a chair and plops down, propping his feet on a nearby medical table. Pipeline glances up with a snap of his yellow head and sees the others coming in and says, "Yeah, there is...well, I think there is at least." He hurms and picks up the device to push down on a few of the crystals, which slide inside the device. "I think I found what's on this thing." he says, "Those aliens found what looks to be a ship...well, erm, I should just play it." As Pipeline presses a green crystal in, the screen it's hooked up to begins to crackle with life. At first, all there is are stars with data streaming on one side of the screen as well as a target reticule in the center of the star field. Whatever this is enters a nebula, its green and yellow explosions shaking the screen somewhat. Soon it comes to an open part of the nebula, a place of relative peace amongst the chaos. Then, a ship comes into view, visible only because it's blocking out stars. It's twice the size of the ark and just as thick. Square in shape it appears to be carved from obsidian. Even from this distance, the view can pick out a few things, namely the front of the craft and its gigantic hangar doors. On those doors is a 'very very' old autobot emblem, older and different than most bots would ever have on their chassis. The probe begins to get closer to the barge like craft when a crackle of an open com channel starts up. A very old mech's voice comes through saying, "Are...are you from, cybertron?" A minute passes before BOOM! A beam of red energy lances out from the monster sized barge and the screen goes static. A course and location using standard galactic coordinates is all that remain on the screen after the recording cuts out. Jazz peers at the screen curiously. "Now that's interestin'." He comments, "An' one big ol' craft--" You got his attention. "So where'd they get th' recordin'?" Pipeline shrugs, "The aliens you mean? You've got me, though if you point them out to me, I could ID them. Foxfire was there too, so he might have seen them as well." He thumbs over to the foxbot. Then he turns towards Foxfire, "Right? Did you get to see the aliens?" Highlight immediately gets his feet off the table and looks visibly shaken by the footage. The look on his face is some weird combination of bewilderment and fascination, and his curled lips leads one to believe that even a bot as imaginative as Highlight can't make heads or tails of this. He scratches the top of his head and leans back, "I think I saw something like that on HBO once -- crazy stuff. For real dude, that was insane." Foxfire is entranced. "My sparklies!" he gasps, and moves to the edge of the table, wanting to snatch the device and regain the precious jewels. But he controls himself, and just sits there quietly, twitching his tail and forcing himself to focus on my important matters. But his sparklies are important, too... As Pipeline addresses him, he perks his ears, and nods. "One of those aliens looked like a lizard or somethin'...uh, with an eyepatch." Scattershot watches carefully the video and re-runs it twice to get a good look at the emblem and the barge itself. "Whatever it is, it dosen't look friendly. Maybe we should barge in and ask questions later." The technobot shrugs but does not look /too/ concerned over this thing. Pipeline grumbles and is tempted to take and hold the device, but he leaves it on the table. "My thoughts exactly, but as much as I'd like to.." he looks over at Jazz, "...what do we do?" Durango throws in an obligatory pose, even though he has nothing to say..that is, until Scattershot speaks. "Bahge into the bahge?" Durango pauses a moment, then chuckles at his little joke..then stops. Realizes it was out loud. Peers straight ahead, trying to play it off. Highlight snickers and gives Durango a small salute. He cuts his deck in half, and instinctively finds the card he's looking for, zipping the "joker" right in Durango's direction. "You know, as much I would absolutely love nothing more than exploring some strange ship without the faintest clue of what to expect, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to turn an ear towards Jazz-hands over there." He whistles to get Jazz's attention, "Captain Leader, any ideas?" Oh good lord. Don't tell me. Let me guess. Jazz is the ranking officer again? Yesh. "We should prolly take a couple o' mechs an' check it out-- it's an old barge, but it looks ta be one o' ours-- an' maybe occupied." He glances at Scattershot and smirks at Durango. "Dunno about bargin' inta the barge, but... we gotta check it out. Maybe it'll be a li'l friendler if it knows we're from Cybertron." Pipeline shrugs and grates out, "Probably why the aliens were trying to sell it to one of us..." He replays the footage till he comes upon the barge again in clear view. "Um...I hate these things. Ah, Teletran two, zoom in on sector 3..." it zooms in on the wrong one and Pipeline smacks the screen, "I said sector 3...3!" Teletran two says, "But this is three Pipeline." Pipeline blinks his optics for a second and says, "Yeah, it is...um, the next one over." Now the barge comes into view, bigger and clearer. "Well, it is cybertronian, that's fer sure." he states. Foxfire snickers behind a forepaw at Durango. Dispite making those explosions and hurting the cassette's poor little audio sensors, Foxy's taking quite a liking to him. He begins to snicker even more as Pipeline starts to 'argue' with Teletran II. Scattershot looks at the image then turns to Pipeline. "Yeah it is cybertronian but then again, so are the Decepticons. Just because it's from Cybertron does not mean it's a good thing." Scattershot pulls a chair and waits until a plan comes from higher up. Jazz nods, "Yeah..." He leans in for a moment, studying the picture. Optics flare under the visor with a sudden decision. "Scattershot-- Durango? Ya up for a li'l trip?" He pauses again, "An' Pipeline-- someone might need some help up there. Best ta be prepared." Jazz starts the good ol' mental checklist for space travel. Seatbelts in the shuttle being a priority. Foxfire darts to another edge of the table and starts pawing at Jazz, though he can't exactly reach him. "What about me?" he pipes up, unable to keep a tiny whine out of his voice. "Can I go too?" Durango shrugs, and stands upright...without falling down. Its warn off, luckily. Just in time to hop a shuttle! "Righto..jus' lemme grab my frequent flyah cahd 'n' ah'll be set." He looks down at the ground, and picks up a card...a joker, thrown at him earlier. "'eah it is. Right then. I'm readeh." Pipeline would go, awwww foxfire is so cute, let him go. But no, he says, "Foxfire? Yer liable to get yerself killed out there. It's no place fer a tape." Highlight arches an eyeridge, hand readying his sword until he finally pipes up, "I'm guessing that you didn't just accidentally forget HL, and that it was a conscious, well thought-out idea to keep me here at base, yes?" It's obvious from his tone that he's disappointed, but he'd never let his face show it. The bot keeps grinning, but there's a hint of resentment in his voice. Jazz shakes his head, glancing down at the paw. Yesh. Good thing he's not sensative about his paintjob, isn't it? "Nah, li'l fox. Ya gotta stay here. Yer made fer sneakin' around, an' I don't think there'll be any sneakin' 'round up there for ya ta do." He's being diplomatic. "An' yer too fragile." Up to the others. "Meet ya on the landin' pad in 5." A grin at Highlight. "Ya got an important job ta do here, HL-- Ya wanna keep an optic on Foxy here? Keep 'im company for a bit. An' if ya see Rodimus, let 'im know what's goin' down?" Note. Keep an eye on Foxfire, and make sure he doesn't try and follow. Resent? Sure. Just keep in mind that Happy Fun Jazz should probably be listened to, because a non-happy fun Jazz isn't fun at allllll. Foxfire lowers his ears and widens his optics at Pipeline, giving him an 'I'm so cute and innocent' look, then his ears lower even more as Jazz, too, speaks up. "M'not fragile," he grumbles, and flops down onto his stomach, hanging a foreleg off the edge. Honestly, he's like a little kid sometimes. Highlight's smirk gets even smirkier and puts both hands up to indicate no hard feelings. "I understand, I understand -- we're goin' for efficiency here, not flash." He eyes Foxfire and shrugs, looking back to Captain Leader, "I tell you what, I'll keep things under control here at HQ, but you owe me a lead role in our next outing, capiche?" His tone seems a lot lighter now. See what simple acknowledgment will do for a bot? Pipeline can just smile and shake his head at Foxfire, "We'll get ya something nice and shiny ta gnaw on on the barge, how about that?" Wow, Pipeline smiling, you won't see that happen any time soon. He looks over at Jazz and says, "I'll get some gear and meet ya on landing pad five then." Foxfire perks his ears at the mention of something shiny, and lifts his head, flicking his tail and beaming at Pipeline. "That'll be nice." The way he sees it, anything that has to do with the device has to do with him. After all, *he's* the one who snatched it from the aliens... Durango flicks the playing card into subspace for safe keeping, and nods to Jazz. "I'll be waitin." With that, he turns and leaves. Jazz chuckles. "Next time we'll get the lotta ya out on a run onna these days. Right now we gotta mission ta do." He grins, "An' who says it ain't gonna have flash?" Shrug. Ah well. "Landin' pad 5. I'll go warm up th' shuttle." Pipeline has nothing else to say or do about it, just that he walks out and heads towards one of the storage rooms to grab some supplies, then onto the shuttle! Pipeline leaves to the Main Lobby - First Floor to the north. Pipeline has left. Jazz leaves to the Main Lobby - First Floor to the north. Jazz has left. Scattershot gets up and heads for the launching pad. "Well looks like we gotta plan. At least we will be getting some action. I was getting bored." The larger mech gets up and heads to the launching pad with a decisive pace. You move north to the Landing Pad... Landing Pad The smell of heated tarmac hits you first as you survey the landing and liftoff point for all flights to Cybertron. The wreckage of previous battles here are off to the back in a jumbled heap. To the southeast is the massive form of Autobot City itself, a bit battle-scarred, but still operational. Surrounding you on all other sides are forests of large conifer trees. The spaceport absolutely sparkles with a new shine - in fact, it's almost blinding in direct sunlight. Spots are a thing of the past, and each building has a brand new coat of paint. Even the *scrap* piles look like they've been cleaned off and straightened up. Contents: Jazz Pipeline Autobot Shuttle Autobot Hovercraft (Defender II) Autobot Hovercraft (Sentinel) Junkion Flagship Pirate Shuttle Autobot Sensor #6596 Shuttle Terminal (Autobot City) Durango enters from the Entrance to Autobot City to the south. Durango has arrived. Autobot Shuttle has arrived. Jazz has left. Jazz boards the Autobot Shuttle . Pipeline has left. Pipeline boards the Autobot Shuttle . You board the Autobot Shuttle . Autobot Shuttle The latest in Cybertronian space technology, the interior of the Autobot Shuttle is an impressive display of technical knowledge. At the front of the ship is the cockpit, with seats for the pilot and co-pilot and ringed by wrap-around screens. Inside are a variety of sensitive navigational and weaponry controls and monitors, constantly displaying information like system checks, long and short range scanners, and weapons targeting systems. Behind the cockpit is a seating section with two rows of comfortable seats for passengers, and in a separate section in the rear is a large cargo bay. Contents: Pipeline Jazz Durango boards the Autobot Shuttle . Outside, Jazz takes command of the Autobot Shuttle . Jazz takes command of the Autobot Shuttle . Pipeline comes up the ramp carrying two large crates on his shoulders. In his hands are two other crates, all are with lids that are locked in place. He sets down the two crates in his hands and then sets down the two on his shoulders. They're all unmarked, but apparently holds goodies for the group to use. "There we go..." he grates, "..goodies from civilops." Then he kicks them lightly aside and moves to take a seat near the front of the bridge. Jazz takes the pilot's seat, and remembers to buckle in. Which will prevent, in the case of an asteroid striking the vessel, Jazz from flying out of the chair for no apparant reason. *COUGH* anyhow. "Good 'nuff, man. Everybody in an' buckle up, so we can get this show on th' road." Scattershot grabs a seat near the door and does not buckle. If something goes wrong he can always leap outside and open a can of whoop' aft. The technobot checks out the crates and nods "Can come in handy I suppose. Honestly J-Man what's the plan when we get there because quite frankly things didn't look too hot for the approaching ship on that recording." Durango comes up the ramp with transformer-sized six packs of bottles; one in each hand. They bear a strange resemblance to a particular earth beverage named Foster's. He sets them down next to a weapons hub, and sits. He's gonna sit with his fingers on the triggers this time around..no more suprises. Pipeline glances back towards Durango and sighs, "Yer taken earth beer with us? Of all the diode blown dimwhittery, ya can't even drink the stuff." He grumbles and shakes his head before bringing up a sensor grid on his screen. "Downloading the coordinates and recording from teletran two. I'll feed that into yer navcom so it'll show ya where we need to go." "Well, t'start with, we're gonna approach with a li'l more caution. An' a broadcast on all frequencies t'let 'em know we're friendly." Jazz does whatever it is that gets this shuttle in gear, nodding to acknowledge the coordinates. "Thanks, Pipeline, an' we're go--" Mhmm. Outside, You blast off and launch yourself towards the Earth Orbit. As the ship drops out of FTL in front of the Orion nebula, the ships auto nav highlights a rute through the nebula. It's kind of long, but nothing that this ship couldn't handle. It will take a bit to reach however, more than a pose. Pipeline is bored as bored can be. So, he gets up and walks over towards his four crates he stashed in the back. Opening one up he pulls out all sorts of gear. From scanners to door code crackers, this mech got it all that would even make Bumblebee weep. He picks up one of the door code breakers and turns it over in his rough hands, wondering exactly how to work it. Well, maybe Jazz would know. Durango stares idly out the windows..here a bump, and his hands fly instinctively to his bottles of expl- um, beer. Smooth flying..his hands return to his lap, and he continues the staring. La dee dah. Scattershot gets up and looks out from the viewport. "Looks pretty old. Any energy readings? Power spikes? Crap like that?" The technobot examines the barge looking for weapons and airlocks then gets a bottle from out back. Jazz would of course know how to work a code cracker. And even if he didn't... he could figure it out in short order. He's a bit busy flying the shuttle through the nebula. Is he singing? Yeah. Under his 'breath', he's singing something as he keeps a steady course towards certain doo- er. The barge. Outside, Cybertronian Barge Outside, Deep within the nebula, safe from any scans or detection sits a giantic spacecraft. Square in shape, the black finish makes it appear that it was carved from obsidian. Despite the millions of years it has been in deep space, it is hardly damaged. An asteroid impact here, a bit of rust there. The only thing that it has for damage is large burn streaks around its engines which sit underneath the rear of the craft. It looks to have had the full force of a powerful ion storm, and lived to tell the tale. Lights occasionally flicker within the craft, giving you some indication that it has power. But who'd be alive after all this time? One thing does stand out on the hangar doors in the front of the craft, that of the ancient autobot slave brand from cybertron's ancient past. Pipeline hurms and says, "Our fraggin sensors are offline, visional only Jazz. Blasted nebula. I'll see if I can give ya somethin though...just a sec." He starts fiddling with the sensor controls. "Can someone divert some backup power to the sensor grid? I've got my hands busy recalibrating it so it'll work." Durango would love to reroute whatever it is to wherever its going, but unfortunately his intelligence stat is far from being matched by his technical know-how. Set up a whole bunker-based defense system using a shovel and some marshmallows? Yes. Reroute the whosy to the whatnow? No. Instead, he sits, looking dumbfounded, hoping someone else knows what the hell Pipeline is talking about. Scattershot looks around at the shuttle's dimensions..."This could be tricky but.../in theory/ it might work. I'll take a whack at it Pipes." The technobot commander starts fiddling around with the power conduits and sensor relays and stuff that he can't even spell correctly. He connects one of the relays to himself and slooooowly transforms into his battlestation mode (It should fit in the shuttle if we can carry 3 dinobots). "In this mode I can use my own sensors to boost the output of the shuttle's sensors." In a long series of 'clicks' and 'clangs' Scattershot slowly transforms into his Battlestation mode. Well... if that doesn't work, Jazz can always set the shuttle on autopilot, and get to work himself. "Ya got anythin' yet, Pipe?" He asks, making sure that the shuttle doesn't hit an inconvenient asteroid or something. Y'know... that'd be kinda cool, a giant game of asteroids... Pipeline sees the sensors jump to one hundred and fifty percent and can get some things, thermal sensors for one, some mass sensors for another, speed, and other basic ship sensors. "Much better..." Pipeline grates, "....um, Jazz? You might want to get us moving...we're not going anywhere. Ship velocity is dropping and mass is screaming at me that we've got something huge off our port, about a hundred astroclicks out. Wish I had gravitational sensors up..." Pipeline adds, "There's something ginormus out there." Durango lights up like a Christmas tree, and he swivels around in his chair, all hands on weapons. He's not anxious to shoot anything, necessarily..he's just anxious to shoot back if needbe. That, and its about all he's good for right now, unless someone needs a hammock constructed. "Gotcha." Jazz says, "Thrusters are goin'-- Think that's the barge?" he asks, "Seemed ta be pretty big in th' video." He's pressing buttons... buttons... candy like buttons... and steering. Pipeline shakes his head, "We're not close enough...and..." he looks out the view screen and says, "...it wouldn't be drawing mass into it!" If he could go pale, he would, but for effect, all the energon drains from his faceplate. Sure enough, gasses, dust, and local objects, including the shuttle, are being drawn into the gaping maw of infinite mass and gravity. The swirling vortex where the shuttle is on the edge of, begins pulling at the shuttle causing it to now grow with strain. Battlestation scans the barge for weapons and airlocks. "Yeah mighty big bugger it is. Keep an optic out for power spikes or any hint of weapons powering up." Being wired into the shuttle's sensors, Scattershot begins feeling the pull. "Crap...I don't like this." "What?!?" If Jazz wasn't belted into the frickin' seat, he'd probably have randomly jumped out by now, forcing someone else to take control. "We're at maximum acceleration, man-- what the--" Yeah, he's looking at the viewscreen as well. Y'know. Black holes really. Really. Suck. Pipeline says, "Ya heard me Jazz! We're being sucked into it!" This does indeed suck. "Options?" Pipeline grates and looks around towards the others. Oh dear. Durango blinks. "I guess shootin' it ain't gonna 'elp, eh?" He really is the fish out of water here. So far this cycle, he's gone to Monacus and pretended to be a cop (no fighting), gone on a shuttle piloted by Rodimus (subsequent crash, no fighting), and now he's being sucked into a black hole (no fighting). Sure, there was the Warrens, but, well..still. This whole no fighting thing was getting on his nerves. "Ah reallah want teh shoot it.." He stops mumbling, and turns to Pipeline. "What's the bahge doin that it isn't gettin' sucked in? Can we mimick it?" Pipeline shakes his head, "It's on the other side of the nebula, the barge's no where near here." He looks over at Jazz, "Can you plot a slingshot course around the event horizon? We'll be movin like Ratbat out of the pit, but at least we won't be crushed like a can." Battlestation transforms back into robot mode. "This is no time to panic. Follow Pipeline's suggestion but get ready to fire the FTL engines if you need some extra pull. If those babies can push us faster than light they can probably pull us out of the mouth a cosmic Lewinsky." With the traditional sound, Scattershot unfolds into his robot mode. Jazz nods tersely, workin' the piloting magic on the navigational computer. "I c'n give 'er a try." He says, "Jus' hold on to yer tailpipes, an' start prayin'." Mmm. Yes. We do know that Jazz can fly a shuttle. But how well can he fly it? "Hope nothin' gets in our way-- or we won't be needin' that lockpick." Yeah. He noticed what Pipeline was playing with. If all goes badly, maybe they won't need it anyway, when the shuttle crashes through the front door of the barge. Or something. "Can ya take a look an' gimme a mark when we hit the edge?" Pipeline nods and says, "We're 50 clicks out from the center, mass is being pulled in from 75 clicks out." The shuttle lurches and turns slightly to sling around the swirling mass of dust and gravity. Pipeline grips his chair as he calls out numbers, "55...60....65...70....mark!" One of the plasma conduits running the inside of the hull ruptures spewing out thick clouds of smoke into the cabin. The stress of pushing the ship so hard too much for the poor conduit that popped. hard was too Mechanical malfunctions...now that Durango can do something about..not fix them, mind you, but he's pretty handy and making things stop doing bad things. He fights the smoke, making his way towards the rupture in the conduit, and powering up his weaponry to its minimum setting. The smoke isn't as bad as it could be..smoke billows, and with billows come occasional gaps, minute as they may be. The trick is to train one's eye to constantly look for daylight..it becomes a second sense. Much in the same way one sees through thick brush or foliage waving in the wind. Once at the conduit, he aims his arm, and attempts to weld the mother shut. Durango succeeds in grasping , throwing #-1 NO MATCH off-balance. Scattershot tries to see through the smoke but cannot so he blindly makes his way towards the port side so he has one hand against the wall at least he will have a better idea of where he is. "How bad is it Jazz?" Pipeline coughs, "Stupid slaggin smoke..." Pipeline glances through the smoke seeing Durango begin to weld the pipe. Good idea. The smoke begins to slow and finally stop as the welding quickly patches the small rupture. He checks the sensors, the ones that work still that is, "We're ok, I think. Gravity generator is off line but we'll be fine without that. The barge is 100 clicks along the course, should be there soon." Jazz ignores the smoke, because he can't do anything for the poor shuttle. And he's got to hit that mark, or more than one conduit is going to pop-- and not just the ones in the shuttle. "Bad 'Nuff--" is the only answer he can give Scattershot at the moment, since he's still trying to keep the steering mechanism stable, while hitting the accellerator at "Mark!" The occupants of the shuttle are probably going to be feeling the stress of the gravity pretty danged quick, because, as anyone with olfactory sensors could tell you, something is burning. And it's the sickening smell of wire casings. That'd be the artificial gravity systems, that have been strained beyond the specs that they were designed for-- and with a pop, they expire. No one ever expected to fly one of these things near a black hole. Ouch. Pipeline scratches his chin, "That footage never was near a black hole singularity...odd." He gives a shrug and tries not to think of those things. That's for the specialops to worry about. Durango barely has time to admire his handiwork than he finds himself staring at the floor..then the ceiling..then Jazz...then...wow...this is kinda fun, in a oh-crap sort of way. "Ground controhl teh Mayjah Tom..." he begins to sing under his breath. Seeing as how there isn't much he can do to fix this, he just...floats. And then the group reaches their goal, the barge. It looms within a patch of the nebula free of currents or explosions. Sitting there, black, square, and silent. As if waiting for the next poor soul to reach it. There's no radio broadcasts from it, all is quiet. Scattershot manages to keep control of his position because he's 'special' not 'short bus special' but he's built to operate in space (yay space-walk). "Watch it Durango you might fly into something fragile." The technobot holds his hand out to his tumbling comrade. "Singularities are very hard to spot to the naked eye since they actually look 2-dimensional so you can never really tell how close or far you are." Jazz hums some obscure tune under his breath, as the gravity starts to not be a weighty problem. Even if he's not made 'special' like Scattershot, he's strapped in, like a smart mech. So he can still drive. "Keep hangin' on fellas," he calls over, "We're still goin' like Blot from a bath. Gonna have to figure a way ta get rid o' some of this momentum." Durango reaches out for Scattershot's hand, and holds on for dear life. "Thahnks, mate." So, he stays there, half-floating, half attached, and praying he tightened all the caps on his expl- um, Fosters. Pipeline holds onto that chair for dear life, well dear functioning at least. Pipeline says, "Primus, I don't want ta get splattered on the hull of that thing." Scattershot thinks about ways to avoid a splatter "Say does this shuttle have some sort of magnetic docking thingies? Cause if we do maybe if we invert the polarity for a while it will prevent us from actually touching the barge and absorb part of the momentum? And yes that plan is pretty whack sure as not Computron that came with it." "I got plans fer tomorrow night. Li'l club is havin' a band or two t'play." Jazz is cutting thrusters, and working on the 'lose momentum. Definately lost the velocity-- maybe one of these days, they'll figure out how to make air-brakes for a shuttle in space. Oh. Wait. The forward manouvering thrusters. Jazz starts to ease them into play, "Uh.... I ain't sure what inversin' polarities would do-- not much fer slowin' us down." He's still at the helm, so hopefully overshooting the barge will help... and the gravity of the barge itself might help slow as well... Pipeline shrugs, "Not sure what that'd do. Might burn out the clamps actually." He sees the ship slowing down and says, "Retro rockets maybe?" Pipeline says, "A thrity second burst would do it, but it'll burn them out." Durango just...floats. He's not much help now, once more. He is happy to fall into his roll as Plot Device Waiting to Happen™. Hitting a few switches, the Meister triggers the rockets. "Better'n hittin' somethin', Pipeline." He comments, "We'll think o' somethin fer the trip back." As long as Durango's Expl-Fosters don't get hit, things will be hunky dory. As the shuttle slows enough for a rendez-vous, Jazz starts making that final approach to the barge. If it's close enough. As the shuttle slows for its final approach, a com line opens. A weak mech's voice comes over, same as on the recording, "Are you from cybertron?" Very eerry and the mech seems 'very' calm, almost monotone. Pipeline waits for the shuttle to slow down, which it does and grates in a sarcastic tone, "He seems friendly..." Scattershot gazes outside "Why do I have the feeling that whatever we find in there is gonna suck more than that hoover we just got out of?" Scattershot checks his acid rifle "Yeah it looked friendly on the recording and just blasted the other ship to pieces. I ain't taking chances. The second this...thing annoys me I will be laying the smackdown on it." Durango fades into the back of the panel..drawn, but not heard. \Friendly, yes, but the other ship got shot at. "Yeah, we're from Cybertron-- who are ya?" Jazz isn't too busy driving that he can't be polite, "Can we get an ID here?" The ship's main hangar opens with a slow groan, "My name's Disposal, welcome cybertronians. It's been a long time. The hangar is open for your ship." The ship's running lights flare to life, inviting the ship inside. Hoorah, running lights. "Nice t'meet you, Disposal..." Jazz does find the name kinda odd. But then-- this might be a garbage scow, for all he knows. And follows the lighted path. Flying shuttles is hard work. Scattershot frowns at the name. "I just hope this thing won't try and dispose of us." The autobot puts his rifle away for now not that he's not dangerous by himself. "Down the rabbit hole we go." Outside, Main Hangar Outside, A cavernous room, which was once an active EDC hangar, now lies mostly empty and desolate. The ceiling hangs roughly ten stories overhead, coming to the point of a pyramid at the very top. Obvious (though sturdy) patches mar the once-smooth walls and ceiling, and the concrete floor has been recently patched, as well. Several large, steel support girders have been added to reinforce the ceiling and walls, adding to the hangar's structural integrity while detracting from its overall appearance. Pieces of old equipment, piles of steel, and crates of supplies dot the hangar-scape, left haphazardly wherever they could fit. Out the main hangar door, to the south, lies an airstrip. Fresh rubber marks there belie this base's apparent state of abandonment. Outside, Barge Hangar Outside, This is a large hangar bay for the barge. Several ancient junk piles that at one time could be called shuttles are found here. They are no more, the ravages of time, and maybe something else has turned them into spare parts. The nose of one of them is still visible however, and you can make out the gutted insides through several holes, but nothing more. Towards the back of the hangar is the only other way out which disappears into a darkened hallway. ***** *** * * * * * * *** *** **** * * *** * * * * *** * * *** *** ** * * ** * ** * *** *** *** * * *** *** * * * * *** **** * * *** * * * * *